Having spent much of the week on the simulator at Scuderia Alpha Tauri’s home base in Faenza, expectations were high as Liam stepped into the paddock on Thursday. Oh, and it’s Alpha Tauri’s home race. No pressure.
Lawson is no stranger to Monza, having won here in DTM in 2021. This may have contributed to him looking comfortable in the AT04 from the get-go, clocking in consistent laps in both FP1 and FP2, finishing firmly within 6 tenths of his teammate in both sessions. When he finished ahead of Tsunoda in FP3, whispers began around the paddock that last weekend was no fluke.
Qualifying would turn those whispers into shouts. The Alternate tyre allocation system that F1 is trialing meant Liam was forced to run Q1 on the hard, a tyre he had precious little experience on. He adapted quickly to the notoriously difficult to fire-up tyre, as a powerful lap late in the session put him comfortably through to Q2. Carrying this momentum through to the next session, Liam placed his car 12th on the grid - just one and a half tenths off his experienced Alpha Tauri teammate.
Off the back of the bedlam that was the Dutch Grand Prix, Monza probably felt like a Sunday drive. Tsunoda’s retirement on the formation lap gifted Lawson a position before the race had even started, but left us thinking ‘could his car be next?’. Keeping his nose clean through the infamous Monza first-lap turn 1, Liam dropped one position before getting caught in a DRS train led by Alonso.
An aggressive strategy to escape the train had Liam first to pit, locking him into a two-stop strategy. The rest of the race saw him head-down, putting in consistent lap after lap until some brave defending late in the race saw Piastri forced to overtake him off the track - earning the Australian a penalty for his trouble. He finished 11th (after Piastri’s penalty was applied) and just outside of the points, something not lost on the young Kiwi; “I’m still learning the procedures and definitely starting to feel more comfortable in the car, but I’m just a little bit disappointed with my race, as I think we may have had the pace for points today”, he said in a statement from Alpha Tauri.
Now all eyes turn to Singapore and Daniel Ricciardo’s recovering hand. Opinions are divided whether Lawson will be back in the car at the street circuit. Lance Stroll’s miracle recovery at the beginning of the season cautions us to manage our expectations, yet Christian Horner isn’t ruling Liam out; “Singapore, I don’t think there’s any chance he’ll [Daniel] be ready for then, it would be optimistic for Japan,” said Horner.
Regardless of who partners Tsunoda in Singapore, Liam’s first full weekend as a Grand Prix driver has shown the paddock that he deserves to be in that seat every weekend.